Of Myth and Magic
by Wonk
Summary: She knew it wasn't good for her, standing here like this, waiting for something that wasn't there to appear. Something spectacular to happen between mis-numbered houses. Something to prove that magic was real. Eventual SS/HG. AU with purpose.
1. Grimmauld Place

A/N: After a near-eight year absence, I am back - at least in bits and bobs. If you're reading this - thanks for popping back in!

Un-beta'd, so all mistakes are from my own urgency to hit "publish." Hope you're all well.

#

**Chapter One**

**Grimmauld Place**

She was not going to tell her shrink about this. Granted, she was becoming used to storing secrets away from him, giving him crumbs (the dreams, the stray thoughts or names or words) and keeping the bread of her delusions for herself. What he didn't know wouldn't hurt him.

And he definitely wasn't going to find about this. Her, standing here on the pavement, huddled beneath an umbrella and watching. She couldn't - she _wouldn't_ - tell him what she was watching for, either. Waiting for. Because truly, she had no idea.

All she knew was that this place, this solid wall between one terraced house and another in a dodgy part of London, was not as it appeared to be. It hadn't changed from the last times she had been there - four visits in total, so far - except that there was now a man's cap balanced on the fencepost nearest the gate. The wool was damp, specked with raindrops. Hermione wanted to take it, stuff it into her handbag, but she knew her mum would inevitably come across it and take it as yet another sign that something about her daughter wasn't quite right.

There had been so many "not quite right" moments in the past six years, since Hermione had, as she called it, "woken up." When she came-to in her childhood bedroom in her quiet neighborhood in her quiet suburb south of London, wondering why her hands were so clean, why her muscles didn't ache, and why on earth she felt as though her muscles were made of bricks, her blood running sluggish with dust. Her fingers felt thick, hard to move. Indeed, it had felt not so much like waking and much more like falling asleep.

Six years. Six years of not doing nearly as well in school as her parents had hoped, not able to hold down a job due to her want to daydream. Six years of psychiatrist visits, of her mother watching her, chewing her lip, jotting down notes when she thought Hermione wasn't watching. The disbelieving laughter when Hermione - not usually one to make a fool of herself - took the broom from the cupboard, set it in the centre of the sitting room floor, and watched it carefully, brown eyes barely even blinking, as if she was waiting for it to take flight. Then there was the shock when Mrs Granger walked in on her daughter throwing a handful of her grandmother's ashes into the fireplace and shouting "The Burrow!" before sticking her foot into the flames and meriting a trip to the overcrowded A&E. That had even frightened Hermione's father, who had for so long before this point clung to the platitude that "bright people are always a bit odd," and had come home from work that evening white-faced, his mobile phone clutched tight in his hand and words racing through his mind: _What are we going to do about Hermione?_

When she didn't know what she was going to do about _herself. _

She knew it wasn't good for her, standing here like this, waiting for something that wasn't there to appear. Something magical to happen between mis-numbered houses. Something to prove to her that she wasn't mad.

_You are mad._

She allowed herself twenty minutes. She could measure the passing of time well enough - she had to, since she'd forgotten her mobile (as she almost always did). The neighbours had kindly allowed her a half-hour of staring last time before they called the police. She wondered if they'd be less wary, now that she was back after having been patted down, her handbag searched for non-existent drugs.

_One more minute._

Now that she was only a crackpot, obviously in need of professional help. Chasing ghosts of dreams to the dodgy part of Islington.

_Thirty seconds._

"Can I help you?"

It was an old woman with a dog. A dachshund. She looked concerned. A clear rain cap was pulled over her head, dotted with rain; her dog lifted his leg on the fencepost.

"I'm just waiting for a friend," Hermione said. She startled herself with the lightness of her voice. "He's running late."

"Right, well," the woman said, already walking on, "do be careful. It's going to be dark, soon."

"Thank you," Hermione said, and sighed as the woman disappeared into number thirteen.

Rain. Five cars driving by. A dog barking, someone dragging a recycling bin from the kerb.

"You, too?"

Hermione started. Did she know that voice? It was a man - tall and dark in a buttoned black trench coat, black hair, black eyes studying the gap between houses from behind a hooked nose. He held a black umbrella, just like Hermione's, and stood next to her, his stance casual, as though he knew her.

She relaxed, as if she knew him.

"Yes," she said. "But I don't know why."

"No," he said. "I don't either."

They stood in companionable silence for a moment, looking at nothing.

"Snape," he said.

"Hermione," she replied.

And they both thought those names sounded rather familiar.


	2. Charing Cross

**Chapter Two**

_**Charing Cross**_

The house seemed emptier than usual. Smelled a bit strange, like something had died somewhere, despite the fact that he'd so recently pulled out the furniture, torn out the shelves, replaced everything he could afford to replace and taken a hair dryer and plastic wrap to the windows in desperate hope of staving off the worst of the draughts. If he lived somewhere different, he would have torn up the floors by now, but he knew, beneath the cold carpet in the study and the warped old wood in the lounge, there would be nothing but stone. No dead bodies, none of the things that haunted his nightmares: wasted, white, noseless faces; the flickering, forked tongues of snakes.

No _her._

There was no one there to greet him when he pushed open the front door (hard, with the sharp bone of his hip - it always stuck in wet weather). It shouldn't surprise him, the absence of life, but for some reason, today, it did.

It had felt strange to sit on the train, alone. Startling the middle-aged woman who sat across from him, short, rose-tipped nose stuck fast in _The Daily Mail_, trying to pretend she wasn't looking up between paragraphs, judging to see whether or not he'd moved (or perhaps drawn a switch blade from his pocket, planning to rob her for her necklace, worth no more than five quid at the cash for gold). He smiled at her once, but that only sent her red-faced back into her paper. She disembarked at the same stop, Cokeworth North, but hung back and bee-lined to the cafe, as though she was afraid he would follow her home.

Again, this sort of thing didn't usually bother him, but today, it did.

The walk from the station had been cold, damp, strangely silent, the town nestled in mist rolling in from the river. He could barely see the pavement beneath his feet. His mind was back on that street in London hours before, when he had tried not to look at _her_, with her cloud-like brown hair, her large eyes, her teeth that she tried to hide behind her fingers - he hadn't been able to tell, but perhaps they were a bit crooked, or a bit large. Enough to cause her embarrassment, regardless, though he had only just wondered what on earth he had said that had made her smile.

The fact that she asked where he'd come from had surprised him. He thought - no, he _knew_ - that his accent was no different than hers.

"Lincolnshire," he'd told her.

"Oh," she said. "Are you here for long?"

"No," he replied, "but I'll be back."

They hadn't exchanged anything more than names. No numbers, or addresses. It seemed as though she was growing more unsteady the longer they stood there, trying not to look at each other, watching the terraced houses as though waiting for a light show to begin. It must have only been minutes, but it had felt much shorter. He could feel a ticking in his head, his subconscious reminding him that he was running out of time. He didn't know what it was counting down to.

"Do you promise?" she had asked, finally looking over, her eyes meeting his.

He felt as thought his heart had literally stopped. Dropped dead into the cavity of his abdomen and sunk right behind his lower ribs. He pressed his hand to the bones, pushed hard, like he'd be able to feel its inability to beat beneath his palm.

She didn't look away.

"Yes," he said, and his heart sputtered back to life. "I promise."

* * *

><p>It was two months before Hermione saw him again. A dull, damp autumn had given way to an even damper mid-winter, the rain driving down from a grey sky, narrow streets hazy with fog. The city teemed with black-coated Christmas shoppers: dashing off pavements, into shops, onto buses or down the stairs and escalators on the Tube. So many times, she thought it was <em>him<em>, but it never was.

Until now.

It was in a pub, a chain on Charing Cross Road, new mass-market paraphernalia stuffed into a 17th-century shell. Black beams stretched over shiny laminated menus stood up on tables, and cheap house beer poured free from the taps. The carpets were patterned and somehow sticky, and Hermione could smell the toilets from the back of the bar. She'd never been there before but she was there today, though she wouldn't be able to tell you why. Her mum and dad had always gone to great pains to avoid such places whenever possible. They'd gone half-hours out of their way on family holidays, in search of "a true gastropub," (her mother always said): "You know we don't trust restaurants with pictures on the menu."

Her parents wouldn't even give this place a second glance if Hermione was standing naked in the front window.

But she was perfectly presentable, today, tucked insider her woollen coat, a wilting paper poppy pinned to her lapel, as she sipped her gin and tonic. She didn't flinch as he sat down across from her, whiskey in hand.

"This is getting odd," Hermione told him.

"It is," he agreed. He held a hand out to her, and she took it, giving it a brief squeeze, as though she couldn't bring herself to touch him long enough for a handshake.

"How is Lincolnshire?" she asked.

"Dark," Snape replied. "Rainy."

"Like London, then," she said.

"Not dissimilar."

He drank and made a face, and she smiled, nearly forgetting to cover her mouth with her hand.

"How did you find me?" Hermione asked, if only because she thought she should.

"I wasn't looking for you," Snape replied. "Why didn't you find me?"

"I wasn't looking for you," Hermione retorted, and his eyebrows arched with surprise before returning to their natural glower.

"So here we are, again," he said. He sat back in his creaking chair and crossed one leg over the other, his ankle resting on his knee. His shoes were leather but worn - black, like his clothing. He was a man-shaped void, devoid of colour; a person in negative. "What brought you to Charing Cross?" he asked.

Hermione leant across the table, her hands in fists on the surface. Leftover crumbs stuck to the folds of her palms.

"It's the same, isn't it?" she whispered. "The same draw."

He didn't say anything. He only watched her with black, shining eyes.

"You're here, too," she reminded him. "You can't lie to me."

His foot found the floor. The chair creaked beneath him, swayed dangerously as he scooted toward her, his knee knocking against her stockinged thigh before reaching a safe place toward the side of the table. He sucked in his lips, a surprisingly pink tongue appearing before vanishing back behind his teeth. _He's not handsome_, Hermione thought. _So why do I feel compelled to stare_?

"Yes," he admitted at last. The whisper of his voice flustered her. For the first time (though why on earth was it the first time, considering the place where they'd first met?), she realized that she knew nothing about this man. He could be _dangerous_.

Actually, it was very likely he _was_ dangerous. Those eyes, the unsettling way he sat there, wholly _other_ to the way this world was, like someone who didn't belong, someone who transcended. Did Hermione have this effect on people? Sometimes, she wished she did, if only because it would provide a reason as to why she had so few friends.

"What is it?" she asked, the chair edging out from beneath her.

"I don't know," he admitted.

"When did you arrive?"

"An hour ago."

"Did you take the tube here?"

"Yes. I'd originally planned on going back to Islington, but ended up here, instead."

"Me too," she whispered.

She stopped, the hair on the back of her neck prickling. The barman was loitering near them, and looked as though he was watching them. It made her uneasy, though at the same time, thrilled her.

"The wall," she said.

"A secret passageway," he said, and his brows furrowed, as though he were confused.

"Yes!" she said. "Why does everyone think we're crazy?"

"We're shutting for the afternoon," the barman called over.

Hermione ignored him.

"It's just a wall, though, isn't it?" she said.

"I expect so," Snape replied.

Hermione frowned, beat her fists once on the table, then took her glass and marched back up to the bar.

The barman wasn't even doing anything. Just standing there, waiting for them to leave. He scowled at her as she slid her empty glass across to him, but didn't reach out to touch it.

"I have a question," Hermione said.

The barman raised his eyebrows, waiting for her to ask.

"Do you have odd people coming in here?"

The barman rolled his eyes. "A bit more specific," he said.

"Have you," Hermione replied, thinking hard, "ever had anyone try to walk through the back wall?"

If he were doing anything, he would have stopped. As it was, he became even stiller, his jaw tightening, a vein standing out from the short line of his neck.

"Bunch of nutters," the barman muttered, then added, louder, "We're shutting up." He grabbed Hermione's glass and threw it in the box with the bottles; the sound of it shattering made Hermione jump. "Happy Christmas."

Hermione and Snape lingered on the pavement as the barman locked the door behind them. Glances were exchanged - but where smiles might accompany, out of embarrassment for choosing a pub with such poor service - only confusion remained.

"Right," Hermione said, as Snape drew his coat tighter around his thin frame. "What now?"

He turned toward her, a mere ten degrees. She caught sight of the black sliver of a pupil, the glint that told her he was looking at her, soaking her in, committing her to memory. She fought the urge to bury her face in her hands.

"When are your parents expecting you home?" he asked her, and she finally smiled without embarrassment, knowing that this was a very bad idea, indeed.


	3. The Grangers'

**Chapter Three**

_**The Grangers'**_

The last time Hermione had had a boy (man? She was twenty-five - surely it was acceptable to call them men, by now?) at her house…well, it had not ended well. In hindsight, Hermione herself was very capable of criticising her own choices, talking herself down from the headiness that had inspired her to slip her number into his hand, as though he couldn't have looked it up himself, and tell him, "Do visit. It would be so nice to see you somewhere that isn't here."

He had red hair. They usually had red hair - she found herself gravitating toward gingers since _it_ happened. There had to be few red-headed, single males of a reasonable age left in London whom she _hadn't _dated, and one of them had been her mental health nurse. He had a wide, friendly smile, his skin so freckled that they all joined up across his cheeks, casting the bridge of his nose in bronze. He'd sometimes excuse himself for a fag break, only to slip a hardback from the nurses' desk and huddle outside to read amongst the smokers (their backs just visible from the ward window). He always managed to slip Hermione extra jelly with lunch. The final token of his affection, if she could call it that, was when once, when no one else was around to hear, he leant in close and whispered, smiling, "I still have no idea why you're in here."

"Does that mean I'll be going home soon?" Hermione had asked, hope fluttering in her chest. She could already feel the soft fur of her cat's tail sliding between her hands, and the smooth plastic of her laptop keyboard beneath her fingertips.

"No promises," he had told her with that exact same smile.

She left three days later. He followed them out to the car, carrying her bag for her. Her parents thanked him, shook his hand, and he waved as they reversed out of the crowded parking spot, kept waving as Hermione's dad rushed to the ticket machine, red-faced at having forgotten to pay for parking.

Four days later he was at the Grangers' when Hermione's parents were at work. "Day off," he'd told her, his ears going red. She'd smiled and invited him inside.

The relationship did not last long. Whilst Hermione was (as always) meticulous in her workings, seeing him out forty-five minutes before her parents were due home and disposing of condom wrappers in the public bin on the high street, she knew that forbidden things were always found out. In the same way that she stored away her secrets, terrified that her parents would read her mind, she was similarly frightened of being caught unawares, and having what little control she had stripped away from her. Add in the fact that they had started speaking more - between awkward, pale sessions between her nobbly cotton sheets - and it was becoming clearer and clearer that actually, he really _did_ understand why she had been in hospital in the first place. Their last meeting, during which he'd asked her if she ought to check herself back in ("I'll get to see you more," he's said, still - always - smiling) had her blurting out to her parents at dinner that evening that she was seeing someone. "Who?" her father had demanded, a speck of chicken escaping the corner of his mouth. "Isn't it a bit early?" her mother had asked.

"A nurse," Hermione had replied demurely. "And I'm starting to think so."

Her parents exchanged poisonous glances, knowing full well which nurse she meant.

Hermione never saw him again. In a fit of enveloping guilt (distracting her from the always-nagging feeling of wrongness that she was finally learning to swallow up, jam deep down into the pit of her stomach), she rang the hospital but was told he'd gone on holiday, and a few weeks later that he no longer worked there. She half-expected a police officer to show up on her doorstep, demand to talk to her relating to a "sensitive investigation," but one never did. She Googled him once, the only closure awarded her the fact that the computer had no clue what had happened to him, either.

She Googled Snape, too, the moment she arrived home from Grimmauld Place - but he was nothing but a village in Suffolk, with six hundred people to his name.

* * *

><p>Her parents weren't home. Hermione was both relieved and nervous at this revelation, and confused, her mind not yet accustomed to the oppressing darkness of mid-winter (had the sun even risen today? She couldn't remember).<p>

It had taken twenty minutes - minutes spent walking from one underground station to the other under the guise of the second being the most direct route home - for her to decide whether or not to bring him here. She had changed her mind at least four times, her nerves only settling once he sat down next to her on the District Line, looked up at the advertisements plastered to the wall above the windows, and loosely folded his pale hands together, as though them sitting on the train together - in adjacent seats, even, though the carriage was mostly empty - was the most natural thing in the world.

They spoke little on the walk to her house. She was curled up in her coat, the paper of the poppy chaffing her neck beneath her turned-up collar, as Snape walked beside her with his hands stuffed in his pockets. She wondered if the neighbours would see them walk up the drive to her front door. She watched the windows, waiting for the flick of curtains, but the adjoining houses were dark, no one yet home this early in the day.

She was proud of herself for not fumbling with her keys. She was less proud of forgetting to undo the deadbolt and swearing as she rammed hard against the door with her knee. "Are you all right?" Snape asked. Hermione didn't answer, just grumbled as she shoved her key into the deadbolt and let him into her home.

"Shoes off, I'm afraid," Hermione said. "Mum's just had new carpet put in."

She bent down to undo her laces. The belt of her coat was fastened too tight; it winded her, and made all the blood rush to her head. Bright spots dotted Snape's black coat, and she felt breathless as he carefully, silently shut the door after them.

"Tea?" Hermione asked. She was balancing on one foot, prying off her other shoe, praying she wasn't about to see his hand reach sideways and slide the deadbolt back into position whilst a manic gleam lit in his eyes.

He kept his hands in his pockets, his expression unreadable. "Please," he said.

She disappeared into the kitchen.

Her thoughts boiled along with the kettle, bubbling, agitated, ready to explode. Crookshanks came in, mewling for food. Snape followed soon after, looking curiously at the cat's bottle-brush tail sticking straight up into the air, only hooked slightly at the tip, like a question mark.

Snape didn't even say anything but Hermione felt duty-bound to defend her pet.

"She's a Persian," she said. "Her face is just flat that way."

"Did I do something to offend?" Snape asked, drawing out a chair and looking at her for permission. Hermione flicked her fingers and the kettle clicked off; he sat, and she nearly dropped a mug as she threw open the cupboard door.

"She doesn't look it, but she's very clever," Hermione said. "The lady at the shelter said she'd been there for six months, because no one wanted her, even though female gingers are so rare."

"I can't imagine," Snape said, and Hermione bristled, feeling as though she was being made fun of; the anger died down immediately when she felt the little nip of cat teeth at her calf, reminding her that she still hadn't slid bits set in jelly into the bowl by the refrigerator.

"Bugger off," Hermione told her, and the cat disappeared into the sitting room with a jingle of her bell.

"Kept bringing in mice," she told Snape, who was obviously bored of talking about the cat. "I'd find them stuffed inside the folds of the morning paper. Quite terrible, actually. Milk?"

"Please," Snape said.

Finally, Hermione fell silent as she sat down across from him at the breakfast table. She'd forgotten the sugar bowl, but Snape hadn't asked for it, and she didn't feel brave enough to climb to her feet to retrieve it.

"Sorry," she said.

"What for?" he asked, staring into the swirls of his tea.

"Being nervous," she said. She glanced at the kitchen clock - they'd been in her house for ten minutes and he still hadn't tried to murder her. A point in her favour, she supposed. Or against it. Half a point each for her delusions and her sense.

"What do you do?" she asked him, not lifting her tea to her lips - not at all confident that she could drink without spilling it down her front.

"I work in academics," he replied.

"Oh!" she said. She set her mug down and fanned her burnt fingers.

"You sound surprised," he said.

Hermione blushed. This was becoming an embarrassing habit.

"And you?" he asked.

"Oh, bits and bobs. I've floated around a bit since I finished school." _Translation: I've been useless since I failed my A-levels_. It was a transgression she still couldn't forgive herself for. Her parents hadn't either, though they rarely admitted it. "I worked in a bookshop, actually, on Charing Cross Road, but was laid off last year." _I was fired after my parents and employers decided I was spending too much time loitering in the fantasy section and bending back all the spines. _"So," she continued, her voice chipper, "have you ever been sectioned?"

Snape choked on his tea. She half-expected a sputtering _I _beg _your pardon_? but it didn't come. Instead, he coughed into his sleeve and said, "Have you?"

"For a bit," she admitted. "I had a sort of…accident."

He pressed his lips together and leant into the back of the chair; it creaked beneath his slight weight. "I'm afraid I haven't," he said. "Not really."

"Oh," Hermione said, selfishly disappointed.

"Most likely for want of family than for anything else," he added.

Hermione started - she hadn't even thought of him having family. Knowing that she had been right in not thinking about it made her feel quite sad, rather than wary.

"Your parents must care for you a great deal," he said.

"They do," Hermione replied, wondering if that was bitterness in his tone. She shifted, her knee (the one still feeling quite bruised) pressing into the narrow leg of the kitchen table.

"So," Hermione said. "This."

"This," Snape agreed. He set his mug down and folded his hands on the table, narrow face patient, waiting.

"What is it?" she said.

"I don't know if it's anything," he replied. "Not really."

"You could just be stalking me," Hermione conjectured.

His lips twitched. "Or you could be stalking _me_."

"Unlikely," she said, and chewed hard on the inside of her cheek. He may have frowned - she didn't notice. "Statistically, women are much more likely to be victims than perpetrators."

"Only one of us in this room has been sectioned," Snape said, and Hermione scoffed.

"I wasn't a danger to _others_!" she protested. She laughed, and Snape visibly relaxed - she wondered if he just realized he might have offended her. Coming from someone else, it would have. _Why hasn't he?_

"I apologise," he said. "This is new to me."

"What is?" she asked.

"I don't know," he said, and finally, he smiled at her. _Not handsome_, Hermione reminded herself, though the slash of his mouth made her palms start sweating, her heart stutter forward, like she had just broken into a sprint.

She finally took a sip of her tea. Too bitter. She slid it aside.

"When did it start for you?" she asked him, and wiped her palms on her trousers.

"I'm not sure what _it_ is," he replied.

"You know what I mean," she said.

He sighed. His fingers were obscenely long, threaded through the handle of his mug, only the faintest lines of her old school's logo curling between his knuckles.

"There wasn't really a point of starting," he said. "I've always felt…off."

"How?" Hermione asked.

Snape shrugged, uncomfortable.

"It was over six years ago, for me," Hermione told him. "I was eighteen." He seemed to start at that - she wasn't sure why. Had he thought she was younger, or older? Why did he care? "And everything sort of went to pieces after that."

Snape's fingers were going white, his circulation being cut off. "I wasn't afforded that luxury," he said.

"Sorry?" Hermione replied.

"I don't really fit in," Snape said.

"Spot on," breathed Hermione, relief swelling in her chest.

"But I don't know if that's a problem in particular to my…beliefs-" Snape continued. "-I really don't know if that's the right word, by the way - or because I'm unfortunate enough to be rather uneasy with people."

"I was never popular," Hermione said, "even before I was in hospital." Hermione's face tightened. "I have a history of pedantry that never endeared me to my classmates."

"As do I," Snape said, and allowed her another of his small, frightening grins.

Hermione started, suddenly remembering, through the onslaught of nerves, what they'd come to her house for. "Back in a moment," she said. She scooted her chair out, feeling a bit lightheaded, panicked for a moment that Snape had somehow managed to spike her tea.

She made it to the top of the stairs without fainting, and didn't hear any sign of him following after. She held her breath as she pulled out her under-bed drawer and rifled carefully through, her ears pricked, waiting for footsteps other than the cat's. Nothing but the scratching, wintry fingers of branches against her window.

Then, downstairs: "Hermione?"

"Just a moment!" She found it stuffed beneath her exercise kit (little used), shut with ribbon tied in a very particular knot.

She nearly fell down the stairs on the way back, and arrived panting in the kitchen with the notebook wedged beneath her arm, only to stop in the doorway, frozen.

"Mum!" she said.

Mrs Granger was not smiling. She was standing in the middle of the kitchen, her handbag clutched tight in her arms, slick, blond hair (so exactly unlike her daughter's it was almost comic) pulled high in a pristine bun, her face tight with worry.

Snape was on his feet by his chair, leaving his mug on the table: a mortal sin in the Granger household. Her mother had noticed, her eyes fixed on the wet ring it had made on the wood.

"I should be going," Snape told Hermione.

"Pleasure to meet you," Mrs Granger told Snape, her voice dry, and Hermione realized with a slick, sweet, heavy feeling in her stomach that the two of them might be around the same age. She hadn't thought of it at all, when they first met, barely even when he sat down across from her at the pub - it seemed stupid, only now realizing that he was _old_. Not ancient. Not on the cusp of death. But middle-aged. Forty, at least. She could read the words as though they'd been written on her mother's alarmed face: _Too old for you!_

"We're not seeing each other," Hermione blurted out.

"No," Snape agreed. "We share a common interest."

"No!" Hermione cut in, knowing that was the last thing her mum wanted to hear. As far as Mrs Granger was concerned, for the past six years, Hermione had had only one true interest, and it was _not_ to be encouraged.

Snape pushed past. The front door opened. A draught blew through, making Hermione hug herself - she realized she'd never taken off her coat; the poppy still chaffed the sensitive skin of her neck.

He was on the front step, the door already closing before she could even wish him goodbye, her mother's worried expression immovable, before Hermione shouted, "Wait!" and ran after him. She shoved the black notebook - her old diary, marked with _1998 _in the corner of the leather cover - into his hands. "Here," she said. "Take it."

"What is that, Hermione?" Mrs Granger asked from the doorway of the kitchen, Crookshanks winding about her ankles.

"Something I've been working on," Hermione said, her eyes never leaving Snape's. "I want you to look at it, and let me know what you think."

His thumb fell between the front pages, wedging it open as far as the ribbon would allow.

"I will," he said.

"Goodbye," Hermione said.

"Goodbye," Snape replied. He stepped back, and Hermione closed the door so slowly, with such an ache in her muscles, that it felt like she was shutting a door between worlds.

She was on the wrong side.

Her mother threw the deadbolt and turned on her, hands on hips.

"The study," she said. "Now," and Crookshanks mewled a traitorous agreement from the kitchen table, her yellow eyes aglow.


	4. Charing Cross, Revisited

**Chapter Four**

_**Charing Cross, Revisited**_

Something bothered him about the cat. In retrospect, he supposed there were several things that _should_ have bothered him about the cat - the fact that the girl had continued babbling on about it chief amongst them - but she had read his silence incorrectly as disinterest. He was not disinterested (as, to be honest, he usually was with people's pets), but, rather, confused.

Mostly because he was absolutely certain that Crookshanks ought to have been male.

He'd meant to ask, before they'd been interrupted. But still, while the girl had her delusions (he kept telling himself, when he was trying not to listen to the rumblings in his own mind), she was not stupid, and she would have known full well the sex of her own pet. It was ridiculous for him to feel so strongly about the matter, as well - why did he care?

_Because it's not the right cat_, he thought to himself, at least three times, before dismissing the thought as absurd.

There was a drawing of it, on the inside of her diary - that's all he'd had time to see, as well as her full name in pen beneath the pencil (_Hermione Granger_) before the Tube became too crowded to read and he had to stuff it into the inner pocket of his coat. He spent the remainder of the journey back to Charing Cross pressed up against a tourist wearing a massive rucksack, leaving barely any room for breathing, never mind flipping through the book she'd given him, studying the handwriting, looking for clues.

He found himself back at the pub, wishing she'd appear, knowing she wouldn't. It was busier, with plates of beige food leaving in a constant train from the kitchen double doors. He ordered a sparkling water from the grumpy woman at the bar and found a seat by the toilets.

He pushed his drink across the table, wary of spilling on the pages, undid the knot he'd tied too tight on the train (he barely had the nails for it), and spread the diary open in front of him. The spine didn't crack at all; the edges of the pages were worn. It was a diary for the calendar year, generic with cheap paper, the _1 January_ crossed out in pen on the first page.

Her handwriting was tiny and neat; she'd even titled it: _Magic or Madness?, _as if it were a dissertation, and not something she'd hidden in her bedroom, away from the eyes of her worried parents. The only amateurish features were the drawings: the cat on the inside cover, done in smudged pencil with an overlarge body and an even flatter face than in reality; and a few more creatures part of the way in: a unicorn, or a griffin, half-way between paragraphs, as though she had to stop and think, or sketch in order to accurately convey what was in her mind.

It was otherwise so tidy that he wondered if she had source material: notes scribbled down to provide an outline, to organise her ideas.

"D'you mind if I take this chair?" someone asked him and he jumped. He glanced up, flicking the diary closed; his look must have been dangerous, because the man paled before disappearing back to the other side of the room, cheekily with Snape's other chair in hand.

Snape flipped back to the first page and finally began to read.

_I strongly believe that it is illogical, when one is experiencing an odd turn of mind, not to keep a record of events. And I am most definitely experiencing an odd turn of mind._

_Symptoms are primarily loss of concentration, insomnia, fitful sleep, and loss of appetite. Mum and Dad attribute it to A-Level stress, as does my form tutor. Which I think is odd, considering I've never thought so little of exams in my life._

_Are dreams symptomatic of something? Are nightmares? What about nightmares where one wakes up feeling cold, and empty, as though the happiness has been sucked out of them, leaving them with screams in their heads? I suspect something may be wrong. I don't want to worry my parents. I will wait a week, and if there is no change, contact the doctor's surgery for an appointment. I suspect, and fear, it may be depression. Brilliant timing_.

The next entry was dated a fortnight later.

_Mum and Dad are worrying about me. I think my tutors might be becoming angry with me, as well…Dr Albert has accused me of ignoring my studies during leave, and of wasting his time with e-mails asking questions not relevant to my maths exam. I don't even remember sending half of them. Mum is taking me to visit a psychologist on Wednesday, which I am looking forward to with the appropriate amount of enthusiasm._

A few lines below, she'd scribbled in, more hastily:

_Psychologist is a quack. Was wearing a paper bead necklace and drinking herbal tea and asked me if I've ever heard of Ian Stevenson, who is, according to the few sources I can find, a psychiatrist studying past lives in children. I told Mum. We won't be going back._

Someone came in from the toilets, the door swinging open on groaning hinges, and a chill draught cut through, tugging at the cuffs of Snape's trousers and sneaking through the holes in his knit socks. He glanced at the signs on the wall, arrows pointing the way to the toilets and the courtyard, as if pleading with people to take their smoking outside on a freezing night like this.

It was almost like the letters in _Courtyard_ glowed.

His chair scooted back, catching on a hole in the ill-advised carpet. He nearly ran into someone coming out of the ladies', and took a wrong turning and ended up almost walking into the back of the bar. He turned back, thinking he should know better than this but not knowing why, and took a left at the end of the corridor.

One more door and there it was, just like he'd knew it would be. A little stone courtyard with bins, and a patio table stripped of its umbrella, folding chairs leaning against its rim.

He stood there, his hands in his pockets, and stared at the facing wall.

_This is stupid._

What was he expecting to happen? That the bricks would rearrange themselves and take him to someplace new? He was a man of science. Sort of. And his thoughts, as always, were taking him to a frame of mind he did not want to inhabit. To be here was a weakness; to be entertaining these thoughts was just going to take him further down the rabbit hole of self-pity and land him in the chair at a psychiatrist's office, or worse, in hospital with _her_.

It made him feel better to take one of the chairs out from the table and unfold it against the wall. _An empirical test, _he told himself. It was flimsy but he was lighter than most men - it groaned and swayed beneath him but did not give way. The wall still ended a few inches above his head; he had to hook an elbow on the lip of the wall and pull himself up with his arms, his heart racing and his mouth dry before his eyes, at last, reached the top, and the air wooshed out of him, his lungs collapsing in his chest.

It was nothing.

Nothing but an alleyway, like any alleyway, the backs of shops with loading docks for chain stores, dark now that they'd shut for the night. Snape felt as though he'd gained five stone in those few seconds as he dropped himself back to the chair, landed wrong and tilted sideways into the bins - he leapt off, misjudged and stumbled into the table, while the bins and the chairs clattered to the ground all around him.

_Bollocks_.

At least no one came for him as he limped back inside. He didn't even walk into the bar on the way back, and his table was still free. Furious, he flung the diary back open (carelessly - he heard a tear of pages from the spine), and flipped open to the next page, looking for something to prove wrong.

Only to find that she'd taken charcoal to it, smeared lines down the page, a black, hanging blob that blocked out the lines beneath.

He snapped the cover shut, suddenly cold. Exhaled, wondering why he couldn't see his breath. His fury had instantly leached away - suddenly all he could feel was the pain in his thigh, the ache in his bones, and a high note in his ears, like the highest pitch of a scream cranked up two octaves, and drawn out to a thin, single note.

He limped to the bar to order a hot chocolate, then sunk back into his chair and shivered, as though he'd never be warm again.

A few minutes later the chocolate arrived with sprinkles and whipped cream. He spooned it off on a plate and gulped down the first burning, chalky swallows as if it were medicinal. He felt instantly better. Buoyed, he opened the diary once more, carefully draping his gloves across the offending page, and took a deep, shaking breath, wondering where his resolve had gone.

The next entry was only a list of words, written in joined up script quite unlike that on the previous pages:

_Fluxweed_

_Knotgrass_

_Lacewing Flies_

_Leeches_

_Horn of Bicorn_

_Skin of Boomslang_

_A hair_

_What does this mean?_

The people around him erupted into cheers. He hadn't even noticed that someone had put a football game on the television. A middle-aged-woman lurched toward him, drunk off her tits already with a cigarette dangling from one hand, and slurred, "You all right, sweetheart? Somethin' botherin' you?"

"No," Snape said, hurriedly tucking the diary away, but not before the woman said, "Writin' a book?"

"No," Snape said again. He shoved the half-empty chocolate mug across the table, as if it would ward her off. It didn't - she reached for the chair that had once been on the opposite side of the table from him, and then realizing it wasn't there, stumbled toward him, grabbed onto the table, and lowered herself into his lap.

"You look sad," she said.

Snape didn't move, afraid what his body would do if he did.

"I assure you I'm fine," he said.

Her thumb found his chin. "Such a long face."

"I'm afraid I was born that way."

She laughed. Her teeth were surprisingly white. She brought her cigarette to her lips and pulled.

"You seem lonely," she said, white, sulfurous smoke leaking from her mouth, dragon-like.

"I get by."

"What a pity," she said.

Without warning, she took a hold of his hand and brought it into her lap, palm-up. He tried to tug it away, tried to get up, but she was heavier than him, and she didn't seem to notice his struggle.

She traced the creases of his palm with her fingers.

"Would you like your fortune told?" she asked.

"No," Snape said, yanking back and finally managing to loosen her grip, but she still had a hold on his sleeve cuff, his button caught between her short fingers.

"Why?" she asked. Her eyes were black-rimmed and liquid. "Don't you believe in magic?"

A second later and she was on the ground, shouting, "Oi!" and a few men were on their feet by the bar, fury on their faces.

Snape walked out without a word, praying they wouldn't come after him.

_Fool_, he told himself. _Idiot_.

This wasn't helping. He didn't know why he thought it would, coming to London. What was he expecting? For years of unease and sorrow and feeling as though something was missing to just slide away, for the plain ordinariness of life to be pulled aside, like a curtain, to reveal there was something underneath that he'd never thought to think of, a mirror that would reflect his true self, what he really was, underneath the plain clothes, the frustration, the sour face and powerlessness?

_Don't you believe in magic? _

"Can I borrow a fag?" a tramp asked from the entry of the underground station.

"Absolutely not," Snape muttered to himself as Charring Cross Road disappeared behind him.

She was mad. The girl was mad. She'd said it herself. She could be a stalker, tried to deflect the accusation by proposing it herself. She could be following him, goading him, setting him off. Someone could have set it up, trying to rattle him.

_She knows, _his brain told him.

"She's delusional."

A woman standing next to him shoved to the other side of the carriage.

The signs for King's Cross/St Pancras appeared a heartbeat later. He didn't even remember changing lines.

_Why are you scared? Frightened of learning the truth? Afraid that there's something in the world that you don't understand? Something you've forgotten?_

"It's not real."

His ticket home was in hand, creases forming between his fingers. The train was on time, already there, nothing stopping him from getting on now, disappearing up north, never coming back. Settling down to a normal life, ignoring the odd intricacies of his brain, pretending she didn't even exist.

He was nearly run over by a trolley, a mother with her children, and another strange sensation slid into place, a tingling crawling across his scalp.

He looked up.

She was there.

Hermione Granger was there, bag in hand, standing between platforms nine and ten, and she was smiling.


	5. Go North

**A/N: **Thank you so much for all the wonderful feedback. I've been a bit pathetic and ill for the past few days and your kind comments have kept me motivated to work on the next chapter. Hope you enjoy it...and don't worry, there should be a few answers (perhaps one or two) coming in the next few installments.

**Chapter Five**

_**Go North**_

The fact that she'd managed to find him no longer seemed odd; the fact that she seemed happy to see him, however….

"Perhaps your conversation with your mother went better than I thought," he said.

"Not necessarily," she replied. She clutched her bag, the smile sliding away. "But it wouldn't have done, would've it? Not at this point."

"I suppose not," he relented. They were standing at an awkward distance apart - far enough for passengers to feel comfortable walking between them, noticing too late and making apologetic faces whilst they half-ducked the two steps from one side of their conversation to the other. Snape couldn't bring himself to move closer to her. It would have felt, he thought, like admitting to something.

"Besides," Hermione said, "I can only stand to be told I'm wrong so many times." She tucked a wild curl behind her ear and lifted her chin. "I'm not accustomed to it, and I won't stand for it."

Snape stuffed his hands into his pockets, hunching into the collar of his coat.

"Where will you be going, then?" he asked, wanting this conversation to end.

Her eyebrows furrowed. "With you," she said, with an implied _of course_. "Any objections?"

_Millions_, Snape thought. "Why?" he said.

Another family passed between them, and, frustrated, Hermione took a hold of Snape's sleeve and dragged him closer. Her fingers lingered on his cuff a little too long before he tugged his arm out of her grasp, tired of being manhandled by strangers. This conversation - this conversation that he'd never intended on having in the first place, that he'd left in an effort to specifically avoid - was going somewhere he hadn't expected. And, judging from her expression, would continue in the manner she had determined.

"I can't do this anymore," she said, dropping her hand back to her side. "It's too much."

"I wasn't aware you were doing anything," he said.

"That's my point," she snapped, his irritation rubbing off on her. "I'm wasting my life, and spending far too much of my precious time completely caned on medication I'm prescribed because everyone tells me I'm wrong. And now you're here…" She had a hold of his damned sleeve again. "…and I know I'm not.

"I'm an adult," she breathed, "and I bloody well think it's time I acted like one."

She was so proud of her speech. He could tell. She must have been storing up those words for years, practicing them in her head, readying them for the right moment. She must have always imagined she would recite them to her parents, not to him - though, thinking about it, he supposed she might have, before she came to meet him here. It would explain why the color in her cheeks was so high. He could imagine her pacing about in the kitchen, having refused to give ground to her mother's demand to retreat to the study. She would be gesticulating wildly, fighting her side, wanting, for once, to be heard, wanting someone to understand her.

"I don't think this is a good idea," Snape said.

Hermione's bright eyes flashed. "Why not?"

"It's not healthy," he said. "What we're doing."

"Is it hurting anyone?" she said.

He bit his tongue; droplets of coppery blood slid between his teeth.

"Not yet," he said.

Her eyes widened. "Please don't tell me that's a threat," she whispered.

"What? No!" Snape protested, his face reddening. "Of course not. I'm not a monster."

She relaxed, and her fingers still fiddled with his sleeve button. "I have some money," she said, "savings for university. Unused, obviously. I can pay for my board, and help about the house - we just need a research base, don't we? To find out what's going on? And I do feel rather compelled…that is, I think it's best for us if we go north."

"Hermione-"

An announcement came over the loudspeaker; Snape's train was about to leave, high-pitched beeps signalling that the doors were about to slide closed and stay that way.

"May I?" she asked with an upward glance.

Those eyes.

Those _bloody eyes._

"Do you trust me?" he asked.

Why did he say those words? Her eyes were wide again, her senses most likely telling her, quite rightly, that what she was asking was wrong, that what she was wanting was wrong. Clever girls didn't meet strange men in pubs, clever girls didn't bring strange men to their homes, and they certainly didn't propose moving in with strange men in the name of research.

"Enough," she said, her fingers closing hard on his sleeve.

"Come," he told her. He took her hand, and they broke, together, into a run.

* * *

><p>He didn't know how she could sleep, with the grind and chug of the train, the bubbling conversation around them, the continuous Tannoy announcements and the shuffling of millions upon millions of shopping bags being stuffed into and pulled out of the overhead compartments. But sleep she did, while Snape sat next to her, pressed against the opposite armrest so their legs didn't touch, and continued to read her diary.<p>

He was glad she was asleep, so she wouldn't be watching him, wouldn't watch his face undoubtedly colour as he reached passages he rather thought that no one should ever read (and he couldn't help but think - _isn't she too young to be reading this sort of filth, never mind writing it?_). She had a thing for gingers, apparently, and felt duty-bound to recount her experiences in excruciating detail.

By the second of such entries, Snape couldn't bring himself to carry on, so he stuffed the diary back into his coat pocket, ordered a tea and a paper from the surly gentleman with the trolley, and spent the rest of the journey trying hard to ignore her.

"Cokeworth," she murmured when Snape nudged her awake at the end of the line. "This is where you live?"

"Is that a problem?" he asked gently.

He half-expected her to snap back with a _yes _(he would have if he were her, comparing her unexpectedly verdant London suburb to his cold, industrial town), but she only said, yawning, "It seems unlikely."

He offered to carry her bag for her, but she refused. She was under-dressed for the north Midlands ("Basically Yorkshire," she'd commented when they stepped outside the train station, though with less venom than he had expected at seeing the tall chimney dominate the skyline across the river). She wouldn't take his scarf, either. Instead, she shivered as they walked in silence to Spinner's End, and she didn't make one comment as he pushed open the door and turned on the front entry light, only for the bulb to blow.

"A charming welcome," Snape said, and Hermione's reply was either a shiver or a giggle - he couldn't tell. "Make yourself at home," he told her.

She went inside, shucked her shoes even though he told her not to bother, and found her way into the lounge, coat still on, bag still slung over her shoulder.

"Toilet is under the stairs," Snape said, stumbling for thoughts of what to do. He wasn't even used to entertaining, never mind having someone keen to move in with him. "I'm afraid there's no bed in the second bedroom, but the sofa isn't so uncomfortable." He blushed, as though he'd made a major error, and added, "Though you're welcome to the bed. I can always sleep down here."

"No, thank you," Hermione said, finding her way to the doorway of the study, poking her head inside. She found the switch and gasped as the overloaded bookshelves appeared in full, buzzing light.

"That's the study," Snape said unnecessarily.

"It's beautiful," Hermione gasped.

Snape blushed, and so did Hermione as her stomach gave an audible rumble.

"You're hungry," Snape said. He froze, realizing he probably had little more than a packet of pasta and a tin of beans in the cupboard. "Er-"

"I know," she said. She unzipped her bag, began pawing through her clothes. "I could really do with some Indian. I saw the one on the corner. What do you think?"

He didn't say anything, and she looked up, the light hitting her from the side, setting her frizzing curls alight. "Do you not like Indian?" she said, her eyebrows raised.

"That sounds agreeable," he replied, his voice hoarse.

"Lovely," she said. She found her purse and shoved it into her coat pocket. "My treat."

She'd already gone into the corridor before she made a noise of surprise, dashed back into his study, and studied the shelves for twenty seconds before picking out one of the largest books that Snape owned and tucking it beneath her arm.

"Be back soon," she told him with a smile.

She somehow managed to align the front door so it shut all the way behind her, and on her exit, a breeze swept through, wet and dank and chill, and Snape rather wondered if he knew what he was getting himself into.

* * *

><p>Hermione had grown quite adept at forcing down her frustrations as she grew older. As a young girl, she had developed an unhelpful tendency to wear her heart on her sleeve, making it all the easier for her adversaries - the brainless bullies in lower school, her rather cleverer academic rivals in upper - to unhinge Hermione's confidence, and make her feel that perhaps her drive, her ambition, and her insatiability for knowledge was something to be ashamed of, rather than proud. If there was one thing that Hermione was thankful for, it was that <em>it<em> had happened at the end of school, when she wouldn't have had to face her classmates as well as her parents as her firm hold on reality became more of a desperate, weakening grasp.

Her newfound ability to hide her emotions was a bane to her parents. Her mother had said as much in the few minutes before Hermione took her bag and left: "You used to tell me _everything_, Hermione. Why are you scared to, now?"

Hermione had not told her where she was going. Actually, that was a lie - she had told her that she would be spending the night at an old boyfriend's (ginger, librarian, harmless) and would perhaps see her tomorrow, if she felt she could hold a conversation without shouting. Mrs Granger had not liked that, but hadn't said another word as Hermione packed her bag, with as much maturity as she could muster, and walked out the front door without saying goodbye.

Now, hundreds of miles away, Hermione could feel that long-held resolve crumbling, and was having a rather hard time keeping her voice steady as she placed her order at the front register, and an even harder time keeping her focus as she opened Snape's book to the first page, only to find it was an old chemistry textbook, several decades out of date.

She tried her best to read, but kept being distracted - the odd pedestrian (even odder now that it was growing late) passing by the window, inches away from her face; a cat sitting on the kerb, its tail twisting as it watched an old woman and her terrier pass beneath a lamp on the other side of the street (Hermione's heart panged, remembering she'd left Crookshanks behind, but she knew her parents wouldn't let her starve). Hermione was growing impatient, her stomach rumbling, when the bell on the door chimed, and a sweet voice greeted the bored men behind the register with a friendly, "Good evening, how are you?"

Hermione looked up, her thumb holding her place in the book she wasn't reading. The men were smiling, charmed, and the woman had her back to Hermione, dark red-brown hair struck through with an odd strand of silver drawn into neat ponytail at the nape of her neck. Hermione's _other_ alarm was ringing bells, sirens, bright lights going off in her head. Her tongue stuck in her mouth as the woman placed an order and the men behind the register asked after her husband, her children, and she answered with faux-exasperated, "They're fine, they're fine. Eternally starving."

Finally, she took out her newspaper and sank into a chair three down from Hermione, her trim legs crossed, her face hidden behind a large picture of yet another disgraced politician on the front page of _The Guardian_. Hermione shuffled in her chair, placed the book aside, and cleared her throat.

The woman looked up from her paper, the edges folding down to reveal startling green eyes and a pretty, pert nose, dusted with freckles.

"Excuse me," Hermione said, and the woman raised her eyebrows. "Have we met before?"

The woman pressed her lips together, her expression humouring. "I don't think so." She flicked her paper back up but Hermione pressed on.

"I know this is an odd question," Hermione said, "but can you do magic?"

"What, like parlour tricks?" the woman said. "I'm afraid not." The smile disappeared, her brows furrowed. "Are you well, darling? Do you need help?"

Hermione reddened and dragged Snape's book back into her lap. "I'm fine."

The book opened, and the paper was smoothed back into position. That, apparently, was the end of that.


	6. Of Magic

**Chapter Six**

_**Of Magic**_

Snape froze at the bottom of the stairs, dressing gown hanging about his bare feet, the air wet, cold, and clinging.

There was a shuffling, a small sigh from the lounge, and a turning of pages.

_Hermione_, his mind reminded him.

He ran back upstairs, ignoring the questioning, "Snape?" from the lounge, then reappeared a few minutes later in a jumper and trousers. She was sitting on her makeshift bed of the sofa, swaddled in duvets and looking as though she was still in her pyjamas, lap completely swallowed in books pulled from the shelves of his study.

"I was thinking-" she began as soon as he walked into the room, groggy and wanting tea. She didn't even look up at him, her attention never faltering from the pages. "-perhaps we need to start forming a few possible hypotheses, then establish the method through which we can test them and…." She looked up. "Sorry," she said, her small smile appearing - she no longer seemed insistent on hiding her front teeth. "Tea first."

"Tea first," Snape grunted in agreement, and went to put the kettle on.

The windows in the kitchen had iced over. He scraped at the pane with his fingernails (_need cutting_); they were frosted on the inside.

"Perhaps we'll have a white Christmas, this far north," Hermione said, and Snape jumped. He hadn't realized she'd followed after him.

"Perhaps," he relented, and took two mugs from the kitchen cupboard.

He didn't say any more, and wanted her to say nothing - nothing about the kitchen, with its 1950s fixtures wearing away at the hinges, in bad need of replacing. Of the Formica worktops and pistachio fridge-freezer that would fail spectacularly in any energy-efficiency rating scales. It switched on just as the kettle finished boiling, and he half-expected her to look at it (it leant to one side, one of its feet having given out in his childhood) and say, "You're destroying the ozone layer, you know," or, "Are you poor?" but she didn't, and only accepted the mug gratefully, not even complaining that he had no milk for her tea.

"Should've stopped by the shops on the way home last night," she said instead. "Sorry."

"No, it's my mistake," he replied, feeling terribly proper. The kitchen was too narrow; there was nowhere to sit down. "Shall we go back to the lounge?"

He pulled up a chair to her sofa and made a few trips back and forth as she reminded him to fetch her diary, then wondered if he had any road atlases, and they settled across from each other, rapidly cooling tea in one hand, completely unrelated books in reach of the other.

"I don't understand," Snape said, flipping open the previous year's _Great Britain A-Z. _

"I'm not sure I do, either," Hermione admitted. She bit her lip. "I thought of something right before I went to sleep last night, then lost it when I woke up this morning. I usually keep a notebook by my bed, but, well-" She nodded toward the diary beneath his mug.

"You can have it back," he told her, sliding it out from beneath his tea.

"Not yet," she said. "Just wait. It will come back to me."

They sipped their tea in relative silence until even the dregs were gone. The lounge was chilly but neither of them went to turn up the radiator any higher. Snape wondered if he ought to light a fire, then when the last time was that he'd had the chimney swept. A vivid, disturbing image (strange, considering his imagination was never praised as particularly inventive) lit in his mind: Hermione, sleeping here on the sofa, invisible beneath her reverse-princess-and-pea stack of duvets, swallowed up in flames as the fire spread from the fireplace to the basket of kindling, caught on the dry paper of the study, set fire to the carpets and the oiled furnishings. But, no - there was so much damp on the walls (she hadn't commented on that, either) that it was sure to extinguish before it even started.

"Is something funny?" Hermione asked, and Snape started.

"No," he said, and flipped to the map of North Wales.

It was only a minute later when she announced, high and clear: "I think we should give _it_ a name."

"_It_?" Snape asked.

"You know what I mean," she said, shoving one book aside in favour of another. "I was thinking…perhaps we need to form a basis, something we accept as fact, even though it seems absurd. Maybe we need to assume, hypothetically, that _it_ - that _magic -_ is real, and we have something to do with it, and perhaps, for some reason, we've forgotten it. So our questions would be, firstly, why have we forgotten? And secondly, how do we get it back?"

"Do we want to get it back?" Snape asked, his own mind running about twenty clicks behind hers. _Magic_? Is this what she was thinking, then? Mystical powers? The girl was mad. Completely off her rocker. And here she was, on his sofa, in his home, after he'd invited her in-

"Don't even pretend to act scandalised," she scolded him, reading his expression as easily as one of his dull, huge books. "You're just as deep into this as I am."

"What?" he said.

"And why _wouldn't_ we want it back?" she said, indignant. "Can you imagine, being able to manipulate things in such a way, to help people…" She trailed off, her eyes distant, and Snape felt the fingers of his right hand begin to tingle, reminding him rather oddly of soldiers' stories of amputations, and how feet would itch years after they'd been cut off.

Hermione hadn't finished her sentence; he thought he had almost heard it in the air: _Can you imagine being given such power?_

"Though I suppose that's just conjecture," she said. "We don't know what it means. Not really. Only that it's something outside of ourselves, and that we, for some reason, are aware of it, when other people aren't." She laughed. "Maybe we're witches."

"Hermione…" he warned her.

"Look," she sighed. "Human beings have been reaching out to the metaphysical for millennia."

"But this isn't religion."

"No," she agreed. "This is something…else. I feel stupid calling it magic, but what else is there to call it?"

"Power?" Snape suggested.

"I don't like that word," she said. "It's too easily abused."

"Why do we have to give it a name?" he said. "Why do we have to call it that,_ magic?_" He didn't like how the word formed in his mouth. It felt childish, narrow, full of polyester capes and wand-waving over top hats.

"Because," Hermione said, her expression darkening, "giving it a name makes me feel like I'm less of a lunatic than everyone thinks." She slapped the cover of her book closed, her curls catching in the puff of air from the pages. "And, I might add, most likely applies to you, as well. So we will call it magic. Is that agreeable to you?"

"Yes," Snape replied, not able to make his voice sound anything but begrudging. "Fine."

His fingers tingled again. Itched at the very tip.

* * *

><p>They went through a scattered morning routine in stages, showering and breakfasting (he found bread in the freezer) piecemeal, coupled with numerous cups of black tea. At some point they both made it upstairs to the spare bedroom ("This is the <em>second<em> bedroom?" Hermione had said upon entering, finally commenting on the state of the house. "How massive is yours?" Then she had clammed up and collapsed red-faced in front of his computer. Snape didn't bother to tell her that this had once been his parents' room and he would challenge anyone to be able to sleep in such a place - it was none of her business).

Snape logged her in to his laptop, and Hermione sat, her palms pressed to his keyboard, chewing absently on her lower lip. Then she started, and said, breathless, "Do you have internet?"

"Yes-"

The mouse flew to the icon on the screen and she double clicked; her fingers dashed impatiently against the keys as she waited for it to load.

"Sorry," Snape said. "I need a new one."

She ignored him. "I remember," she said instead. She didn't elaborate, only typed into the search bar the name of the pub they had visited on Charing Cross Road. "There might be something that the pub and Grimmauld Place have in common," she said as the website began to grind to life. "I looked it up before I left Mum and Dad's. Grimmauld Place - where we were standing? Between numbers eleven and thirteen. I thought it was alternate numbering, and the even numbers would be on the other side of the street, but it isn't. There is no number twelve."

"The walls could have been knocked down between them," Snape said, struggling to keep up with her runaway train of thought.

"Eleven and thirteen are the same size," she said. "And the rest of the street is full of As and Bs…they're dividing the houses into flats there, not joining them."

"Right," Snape said. "But it could be a mistake in the numbering."

"Yes, but I was thinking…" Hermione continued, impatiently waiting for the pub's webpage to appear. She frustratedly clicked through to the _Contact Us _page, then, triumphant and smiling, pressed her index finger to the screen. Snape bent closer, at an awkward angle so he didn't touch her, and she moved her finger down so he could read _The Cross Keys, London_.

"No number," Hermione said. "Not even a street name. Just a postcode."

"But it's on Charing Cross," Snape said, feeling like he was in freefall, unexpectedly losing what seemed to have become a battle of wits.

"It's set back a bit from the road, possibly predates it," she said. She clicked back to the search results, went through to the telephone listings only to find the same address. "You'd still think it would have _some_ sort of location marker," she continued. "At least 'Something Court' or 'Blah Blah Alley.'" She sat up straighter and rubbed a finger across the bridge of her nose. "Seeing as those are the two places we met each other, without prior arrangement, don't you suppose that means something?"

"So...one place doesn't exist, and one place doesn't have a proper address," he said. "That means something."

She grunted, frustrated with his hesitation. "It _means something_, Professor."

There was a pause, and he asked, "What did you call me?"

"Pardon?"

"I believe you just called me 'Professor.'"

"Did I?" She clicked through to another page, unfazed. "Well, you did you say you worked in acadaemia…."

"I'm not a professor," he said, though something warm glowed inside him at the thought.

"Sorry," she said, and she asked, "What am I meant to call you, then?"

"Severus," he said. "Just Severus."

"How Roman," she remarked absently. She shook the mouse; her foot jingled beneath the desk. So much energy, so much excitement - how on earth was Snape meant to keep up?

"Right, Severus," she said, practicing the name. "Did you bring up the road atlas? I have an idea."

That smile appeared once more, and Snape, much to his surprise and his hesitance, felt himself growing rather excited to hear what Hermione Granger had in mind.


	7. Best Laid Plans

A/N: Happy New Year to all Gregorian calendar adherents! Apologies for the delay in updating - I've been in a mince pie coma for the past few weeks. More to come.

* * *

><p>Chapter Seven<p>

_Best Laid Plans_

It was Hermione who had assigned separate maps, but Snape who suggested separate rooms. Hermione was hesitant to accept, answering his, "It's better to keep ourselves from the other's influence," with a somewhat begrudging, "I suppose."

It was childish, her unwillingness to leave. As if she left the room, he would disappear along with it.

She tucked her map (another copy of _Great Britain A-Z, _six years older than the one open on Snape's lap) and went to the door, only for him to give her a small, flat smile and say, as if he could read her mind, "I'll still be here when you get back."

The lounge was freezing again, and the sun too low and the houses across the street too high to allow in much light. She turned the reading lamp back on and huddled beneath the nest of duvets on the sofa, ramming her back up against the armrest, biting down on her lower lip as she turned to the first page.

Her earlier confidence was rapidly depleting the more she tried to make herself focus on the page numbers. _This should work, shouldn't it? s_he thought. But she wasn't sure. She wasn't in a fugue state the first time she went to Grimmauld Place; she wasn't in a trance. She didn't know _why_ she was on that particular Underground line at that particular time, going in that particular direction, but she knew where she was going, and when she looked at the map later, from the safety of her locked bedroom, she could point out exactly where she had been. She'd asked Snape and he'd reported the same - he hadn't planned to go, but he had known where he was going. His trips to London were last-minute but too long to not have been noticed. And when she'd held up the map of London and asked him to show her where he'd been, the point of his finger landed on Charing Cross Road, exactly where she wanted it to.

But alone in the lounge, the more pages she flipped through, the less she felt inspired. _This is stupid_, she thought instead, furious with herself. _I'm a blooming nutter_. Her heart stuttered, her face flushing with guilt - her mum didn't like that word; a dear cousin with a sensitive mental state had helped to make the Granger Family List of Unacceptable Words rather long.

"Absolutely batty," Hermione whispered to herself, feeling strangely satisfied at the self-abuse.

Snape had been the first person in so long to outright call Hermione mad. But _he_ hadn't looked at her as though she was crazy when she held up the two road atlases and said, "I propose an experiment." Rather, his features were so tense, his dark eyes so sharply focused, that he had seemed…_excited_.

Wound tight.

But respectful, reverent. Like he understood her.

It had been so long since someone had. Such a long time since she'd felt such companionship, and he wasn't even in the room. It didn't matter. Hermione rode that rush to the next page, scribbled a circle in blue highlighter. Her thumb traced east. A draught moved through the room, the scraggly hedges outside the window taking the brunt of a sudden wind, the chill rush of air guiding her fingers up through Cornwall, Devon, Somerset. Even inside, among the earthy scents of an old house, Hermione could've sworn she could taste the tang of snow on the wind.

Another circle.

_Woodsmoke, musk._

And another only an inch south of the second.

It was dark by the time Hermione had finished, and her stomach was grumbling. She looked at her phone - it was three o'clock, and she had four missed calls, all from her parents. She tapped out a quick text (_All okay. Just need time_) and shifted the duvets off of her, stretching her back and holding the road atlas up to the light. The pages were dotted with little blue circles; she traced them with her finger, playing connect-the-dots with the tip of her nail. She could remember drawing them - the flick of the wrist, the sour smell of the marker pen, the squawk of it across the paper - but if Snape asked her why she marked what she did, she would have no idea what to tell him.

"Hermione?" he called from upstairs. "Are you finished?"

"Yes," she said. She cleared her throat and licked her lips. "Be up in a moment." Her thumb hovered, aching as it edged across the north of Scotland. "Tea?" she asked brightly, pressing so hard into the paper that she left a dent.

Snape's voice was a desperate sigh: "Please."

* * *

><p>Their map was complete. To another person, it would be inelegant: a mess of blue highlighter and black-pen stars on a road map canvas. To Hermione, it was a masterpiece.<p>

They'd started far south, at the tip of Cornwall; Hermione had felt unease when he looked at her blue dot and said, "No, not on mine." The same for a countryside village in the hills of Devon. She moved on to the next, watching his face as he gazed down at her fingers, watched him swallow. He glanced back at his own page, where a yellow spot highlighted a space just a few millimeters off of hers.

"Almost," he said.

"Close enough," she replied, heart beating hard in her throat.

Her hands had started shaking as they carried on through the pages, roads, bits of green and yellow; places they didn't share were fairly numerous, but the places they did….

"Remarkable," Snape said, as Hermione scribbled another star on top of her blue dot in Wiltshire.

"I told you it means something," she said, trying not to sound too pleased despite the fact that she felt nearly drunk on her own cleverness.

A minute later she had drawn another star in the Forest of Dean, and again just slightly south of it. A few more places in Central London, grouped around Charing Cross Road and Westminster. Islington, for Grimmauld Place, of course. She insisted on a star in Leeds but he just shook his head, then snorted when she pointed to Cokeworth.

"I don't know!" she defended herself. "It seemed silly not to."

"Yes, well," Snape said, flipping to the next page, "I can assure you, there is nothing magical about this place."

Hermione only had two dots north of York, both in northern Scotland.

So did Snape.

"Well, that sorts it, then," Hermione said. She crossed her legs and scribbled the final two stars on her map. "Empirical proof that we're not mad."

"Shared delusions," Snape said, but he was smiling (a bit).

"Of course," Hermione replied. He mind was buzzing, her fingers clutching the map so hard that her nails would leave marks.

Suddenly she didn't know what else to say. Their eyes met; Hermione swallowed, squirmed, suddenly terrified of the next words that would come off his tongue. For a second, she thought he might say nothing. Refuse to open his mouth, to let the admission out.

To tell her she was right.

He didn't say anything for a moment. Instead, his long finger slid down her map, coming to rest on a star in the West Country, right on the crest of her upper thigh.

"Well, Miss Granger…" Snape said, pressing the star into her skin, a sharp indent that to her tortured mind felt hot with her desired praise, "…do you want to buy the train tickets," he asked, "or shall I?"


	8. The Odd Couple

**Chapter Eight**

_**The Odd Couple**_

Mrs Jones was used to having strange people come to stay in her little bed and breakfast near the Forest of Dean. She wasn't judgmental, mind - and she well could have been, considering the strange sorts she had seen. _She _was never going to be in the news for refusing to let a nice gay couple stay in her best double bedroom. To be fair, her husband would have minded, if he were there, but he was dead, so it didn't really matter what he thought, anyway.

However, with most couples coming through (holidaymakers, usually, most often during the summer - those too soft to find the campsite down the road to their comfort), she could understand the match - most often they were alike in looks if not in mind or social graces. Prostitution was never a problem in her little inn (or if it was, she very well couldn't tell), and she always thought that her hand-crocheted doilies would make an odd background to an illicit tryst.

So when these guests came inside and pulled off their shoes so as not to trod mud on her carpet - after ringing ahead only twenty minutes before they arrived, wondering if she had space - she was, perhaps, just _slightly_ confused.

They were an odd pair, the girl nigh-on twenty years younger than her companion, but she far too modestly dressed (and with hair far too large) to be anything unsavoury, surely. And while Mrs Jones was used to exchanged glances when she asked questions about room preferences, or if they would prefer the full English at breakfast or the continental, she had not expected them to turn to each other with careful, low conversation, as if they were sharing state secrets.

"I'll leave you to it, then," Mrs Jones said, beckoning her Bichon Frise back into the kitchen with her.

She hovered by the door for a while, never very good at looking busy when there was nothing to do (a dull episode of _EastEnders _was still glowing, muted, from her telly in the sitting room), and waited, wondering what on earth they'd come to her for. She could still hear the sound of their low whispering in the other room, as if breakfast was serious business.

Surely _this_ was nothing untoward? Not this close to Christmas.

The bell rang. She reappeared on her stick, puffing a bit, not wanting it to look as though she'd been eavesdropping (she would if she could - damn her failing ears). The girl was holding out two folded banknotes in her hand, as well as their guest card. "We'd like a room with two singles, please," she said. Mrs Jones must have frowned because the girl asked, "Is one available?"

Mrs Jones blinked at them, more blood than she thought she had left in her old veins rushing to her face, and said, "Oh yes, my love, of course." She selected one of the keys from her ring and handed it over. "Up the stairs, first door on the right. En suite and everything. Hope you find it to your liking."

They both hesitated for a moment, the key clutched in the girl's palm.

"Breakfast on the card?" Mrs Jones said, only having to briefly glance at it to find that it was. She didn't move, instead waiting for something…some sort of clue. For them to tell her anything, really. A bit of gossip, if they'd be so kind to entertain her.

"Yes," was all the girl offered, plainly confused.

"May I," Mrs Jones said, her voice craggy with phlegm. She cleared her throat and started again, her smile slipping a bit. She needed to re-stick her dentures in place. "May I ask what brings you to these parts this time of year?" she asked. "Bit cold for exploring."

"We like the cold," the gentleman said, the first words she'd heard him speak. His voice was alarming, deep and rotund. _Far_ too old for the girl. And they weren't obviously related, at least not by blood. _Curiouser and curiouser._

"Visiting family for the holidays?" Mrs Jones asked, for some reason unable to let it go. Even her dog knew better; Henry had a hold of the hem of her skirt and was dragging her backward into the kitchen, perhaps in hope that while she was there, she'd remember to fill his neglected food bowl.

"No," the man said, only for the girl to hold up the key, say, "Thank you very much. We'll see you in the morning."

"Sleep well," Mrs Jones said, slipping smile still in place. "Let me know if there's anything you need." She edged back into the kitchen, shutting the door only partway behind her.

Henry was looking at her from his bowl, eyes wide and accusatory, as the two pairs of footsteps shuffled up the stairs above their heads.

"Odd," Mrs Jones told her dog. "Very odd."

Henry blinked and nudged his empty bowl forward, his only reply, while upstairs, the door slammed shut and the lock slid firmly in place.

* * *

><p>Severus Snape had not shared a room since…well…not in a very long time. And with a woman…good god, it had been so long, his virginity might've well grown back.<p>

Of course, this wasn't like that. Not at all. He had tried to be a gentleman (as well as he could, in any regard) and offered to pay for a room of his own, but Hermione only levelled him with an incredulous look and a lifted eyebrow and said, in a whisper, "Can you afford that?"

His silence had been the only answer she needed.

"We're both adults," Hermione had said. (Did she have to smirk like that?) "If you promise to stay to your bed," she continued, "I'll promise to stay in mine."

So there he was, kicking his things beneath a single mattress in a dim bed and breakfast in almost-Wales, with a girl twenty years younger than he was. A girl who wouldn't shut up.

_And_ he had a headache.

Hermione turned on him. She was folding her things away, as if she was packing in for a long Winter. "I was thinking-" she began. Of course she was. She was always thinking. "-that we ought to go into town tomorrow morning to take a bit of a look around. Tourist information, libraries-"

She kept talking even when Snape turned on the TV. It was as though she didn't realize, or was waiting for him to rectify his rude mistake, but three steps and thirty seconds later, the television was on mute. Her hands were on her hips, her grip on her pockets too loose to be angry.

"Is something wrong?" she asked.

Snape blinked at her slowly, and she rolled her eyes.

"_What_?" she insisted.

"It's too much," he replied, trying to find the volume button on the remote - all the markings had worn off except for _record_. "My brain is about to leak from my ears. I need rest."

"You, _professor_?" He wished she would stop calling him that. Mostly because the words seemed to bite, after it first slipped from her mouth: when he caught his bag in the door of the train when leaving Cokeworth; after he'd tried to pay the bus fare with a fifty pound note. Around her, he was bumbling, apparently. A black-clothed slapstick act, his natural scowl only adding to the comedy value.

"Why don't you read?" he suggested. "I'll keep the volume down."

She didn't protest. She only stood there, her hands gradually slipping from her hips, the faux-anger similarly sliding away. Only when he craned his neck to find a better view of the evening news did she sigh and trod back to her bedside, collapse so hard that the springs squealed, and turn her back to him, the crack of a book's spine the only sign she'd started reading.

He didn't remember turning the television off, nor the lamp, for that matter, but what seemed like minutes later, after he'd only closed his eyes for a moment, the light had changed, grey rays of a cloudy morning slipping sideways through the thin curtains of their room. The plastic alarm clock on the bedside table said 7:32 AM in bright, angry letters. There was a clatter downstairs - pots and pans, a sizzle, their full English being prepared. But that wasn't what had woken him up.

There was a whimper from the other bed. Hermione still had her back to him, but she was a lump under the duvet, a thick braid snaking across her pillow.

Snape lay still, holding his breath, watching the curve of her shoulder, the line of her neck, her chin, waiting for them to move.

Another whimper. A twitch. A slurred and muffled, "_Nooo_."

"Hermione?" Snape whispered.

"_No_," she whispered, and her shoulder gave another twitch.

Carefully, quietly, Snape slid from his bed (when had he crawled beneath the covers? Had she tucked him in?) and crouched down at Hermione's side.

She was really only an outline of a girl: wild hair, high cheek, long neck, the bulky duvet clutched around her middle. Snape's eyes slowly adjusted until he could see her finer features: the way her mouth gaped open, large front teeth nudging against her lower lip; the rapid movement of her eyelids beneath wide, furrowed brows.

Her mouth opened more, formed a word:

"Ron," she said, and pulled the covers up to her neck.

"Sorry?" said Snape.

"_Ron_," she repeated, then suddenly, her eyes snapped open, and she jolted back across the narrow bed, only for Snape to react likewise and dash the back of his head against the wall.

"What are you _doing_?" she shouted as Snape clutched hard at his skull, wincing.

"You were talking in your sleep," he replied, easing himself to his feet; if he crouched much longer, his knees would give out. He have his head another careful rub, and the pain ebbed. His hair stuck to his fingers. He needed a shower.

"No, I wasn't," she said. She sat up, looked blearily at the bedside clock. "What did I say?"

Snape frowned.

"What?" she insisted.

"You said 'Ron,'" Snape told her.

"'Ron,'" Hermione repeated, eyes wide.

"There were a few moans, as well," Snape told her, his head giving an embarrassed throb. "And a 'no.'"

"Well _that_ bodes well," she said. Snape didn't even know where the notebook in her hands came from, but she had plucked it from thin air, apparently, and was scribbling notes onto one of its crowded pages. "Was there anything else?"

"No," Snape replied. He nearly moved to sit on the edge of her bed, but thought better of it and went to his own, lowered himself across from her, the bedsprings protesting. "Were you dreaming?" he asked.

"I suppose I must've been," she said, jotting down another note and snapping her book shut. "I can't remember."

"Who's Ron?"

"No idea," she sighed. She glanced at him, looking unaccountably angry from behind a loose, frizzing curl. "Did _you_ dream?"

"I don't even remember going to sleep," Snape admitted, trying hard not to groan as he reached down to pull on his socks.

Hermione didn't answer. He looked up to find her blushing again.

Oh god. She _had_ tucked him in.

"Breakfast is ready," he told her, in case she hadn't noticed the canonfire of pots and pans downstairs.

He pulled on another sock. Hermione didn't move.

"Is something wrong?" he asked.

"I…" She ran her palm across her cheek and looked determinedly at the far wall, as though examining it for a smear of his blood. "I feel…sad."

She turned once more to face him, her eyes glowing with tears.

"Breakfast," Snape said, summoning a grimacing smile. He pulled himself up and offered her a hand, which she ignored. She didn't move as he went to the door, slid aside the lock, waiting. "Smells…interesting," he encouraged her.

"I'll be down in a moment," she told him, and sunk so low onto the mattress that she was nothing more than a lump beneath the covers. "Start without me."

"Fine," Snape agreed, and shut the door after him, rather wishing he hadn't heard her start to cry.


	9. The Forest

**Chapter Nine**

_**The Forest**_

Severus Snape was in a foul mood.

Hermione knew exactly why, as well. She'd been at the foot of the stairs when she heard the slide of plates across a table, Snape's deep, murmured, "Thank you," and Mrs Jones's much louder, highly grating voice:

It was a laugh, at first, a nervous one, followed by her asking, "Will your friend be down soon? You can be a bit intimidating on your own, can't you?"

There was a pause, as if the woman was waiting for an answer. Hermione stopped behind the mostly closed door, biting her lip, not quite sure she wanted to interrupt.

"I'm not being funny," Mrs Jones continued. There was a pop of a sealed jar opening (or perhaps Snape had just thrown a swing and sent her dentures flying - but a jam jar seemed more likely) and the scrape of a knife on a plate. "It's just - you have the look of a serial killer about you, I think. She softens you a bit."

_My cue, _Hermione thought, swinging the door open and smiling, hoping it still didn't look as though she'd been crying. Snape would never forgive her if they gave the woman even more fodder for her weekly supermarket gossip.

"Good morning," Hermione said brightly. "Sorry, took a bit too long in the shower."

"'Morning," Mrs Jones said, face glowing red with embarrassment, as though Hermione had found her chatting Snape up rather than insulting him. "Sit down. I'll be out with your breakfast in just a moment. Help yourself to some toast."

She disappeared back into the kitchen.

"Feeling better?" Snape asked without interest as Hermione lowered herself into the wicker chair across from him.

"Feeling murderous?" she chirped.

He buttered his toast, scowling.

"I think we should take a break today," she told him. "At least mentally. This might be the only clear day we have - I think we should head into the woods."

"I don't even know what we're looking for," he said, refusing to look at her as he shoved mushrooms onto his toast with the back of his fork.

"Isn't it obvious?" she asked, perfectly aware she was being just the slightest bit insufferable, and delighting in it. "Other people. Like us, I suppose."

"You think there are?"

"Shouldn't there be? It can't be just us."

"People," he said. "Just standing in the middle of the woods."

"I don't know. Maybe!" She took a bite of toast, chewed, swallowed. "I know it's stupid."

Snape opened his fingers, palm up, as if to say, _Isn't this all_.

"And if not other people," she said, "then at least something that can help us…remember."

He met her gaze, glowering at her.

"You marked the map, too," she told him. "We wouldn't be here without you."

"Don't remind me," he said, and took a long, steaming sip from his tea.

* * *

><p>Snape looked slightly less grumpy in his wool hat, but Hermione certainly wasn't going to tell him so, if only not to fall prey to the irritation that no doubt lingered beneath the brim. They stood at the end of a farm access road, on the edge of a footpath; he had the torn page of the map in his hand, and an Ordnance Survey unfolded it beneath it. They were approximately two miles off of Hermione's spot, and at least another quarter-mile from that to Snape's. The weather was fine, as promised, snap-cold and their breaths frosty. She had remembered her compass, but forgotten mittens. <em>Forest for the trees. <em>She handed the compass over with frozen hands.

"Girl Guides?" Snape asked, balancing it in his palm.

"Yes," she admitted, wondering why she ought to be embarrassed. "And Duke of Edinburgh, though I gave up after the bronze."

"You certainly do plan ahead."

Hermione chose to accept that as praise.

"Well then," she said, holding aside a blackberry vine and gesturing him forward. "On we go."

Considering how their morning had started and Snape's forbidding mood, Hermione had committed herself to the idea that the day would be largely spent in silence, so it surprised her when he helped her over a stile, promptly let go of her hand, and asked, "Did you lose someone in the war?"

His gaze had flickered to her lapel, and it took another moment and a downward glance for her to notice that he was referring to her poppy.

"Oh," she said. "No. I mean, a great uncle, but I never met him. Obviously."

"Remembrance Day was a while ago."

"I know," she snapped, surprised to feel tears springing to her eyes. She had thought she'd shaken the odd mood, having forgotten the feelings just as suddenly as she'd forgotten the dream. "It just feels…wrong to take it off."

Snape pressed his lips together, then slid the compass aside to check their bearings. "Next path on the left," he said.

It wasn't. He grumbled; they turned back and re-oriented themselves, then pushed on the path ahead. The forest was starting to close in. Part of Hermione remembered the Forest of Dean as it was when she was there with her parents years ago, with its brambles and nettles and hogweed. She had no reason to remember it otherwise - she was a Londoner, after all - but even in winter, with the bare branches and scratching twigs, and the soft, sinking ground below, it seemed strangely - coldly - familiar.

"It's the following left, after the corner," Hermione said, hands going numb, cheeks stinging with cold. She shoved her fingers deeper into the pockets of her woolen coat.

Snape flicked the map, checked the compass, and gave a begrudging nod. They walked for a few more minutes in silence, before the question exploded from her mouth:

"Have you seen _Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind_?" she asked.

Snape gave a confused grumble. "Seen what?" he said.

"It's a film. Came out a few months ago."

"I don't go to the cinema," Snape replied.

"Neither do I," Hermione said. "But as far as I know, the premise is that the two main characters are in a relationship and elect to have their memories of each other erased after a falling out."

"Sounds terrible," Snape commented, still scowling.

"It does, a bit," Hermione replied. "Surely every opportunity is ripe for _learning-"_

"Do you think that's what's happened to us?" Snape asked. "We've had our memories erased?

"I don't know," Hermione said, then gave a small, bitter laugh. "I _never_ know, do I? I'm so tired of not knowing."

"I don't have any pieces of my life missing," Snape said. "Not to say I remember every detail - no one does, do they? But everything adds up, unfortunately. And there are bits of it that I wouldn't mind forgetting."

Hermione's eyes narrowed. She knew her expression was prying; as expected, he didn't give in.

"It would have to be something really awful," she said, "for me to want to forget it."

Snape licked his lips but didn't reply. They walked a few paces, following the icy clouds of their breaths, leaf mulch and twigs crunching underfoot. In springtime, the forest would undoubtedly be awash with bluebells, the forest floor a shimmer of purple. They'd been gone the last time Hermione had been there, camping with her parents, when the change of season had brought with it yellow petals, white, puffy nettle flowers. Laughing and hiking and reading books under torchlight, while her parents carried the telescope all the way from the car and pointed out the planets in the clear, cloudless night sky.

"Past lives," Snape suggested, the words coming out so fast it was as though he was embarrassed to say them.

"You've been talking to my old psychologist," Hermione said with a laugh.

"I did see it, in your journal," Snape admitted. "What if she's not wrong?"

"It's bunk."

"I think so, too," Snape said, "but so, theoretically, is the existence of magic."

A few more paces. She buried her chin in her scarf.

"I don't either," she said, latching on to his earlier comment, then clarified, "have things that are missing. I remember everything I should. I know what's happened in my life - it's not like my memories and my parents' don't add up. It's just my…perception, I suppose, that's not right. Sometimes I think things work the way they shouldn't. Or it's feelings…" Her voice caught, and she cleared her throat. "Who in the _world _is _Ron_?"

Snape didn't answer, and she was annoyed, as though he should've been able to. They pressed on in a new uncomfortable silence, the footpath narrowing so they had to walk single-file, stepping over vines, avoiding puddles and soggy quagmires of mud. Hermione was getting cold and perhaps almost as grumpy as Snape, annoyed even more by the fact that they had so much to say, so much to talk about, but she didn't even know how to start.

Snape stopped so suddenly Hermione nearly ran into the back of him.

"Wha-" Hermione began but Snape shushed her, his long gloved finger pointing in the air, then off into the bushes at the left. Hermione's eyes followed the trajectory, then saw…

_Oh_.

A deer.

A pretty, white-speckled fallow deer, a doe, feasting, oblivious among the greenery. Snape hadn't struck her as a great appreciator of wildlife, so couldn't understand why - oh, for goodness sake, he was starting to _follow _it now, creeping through the wood as quietly as he could, his hand behind him waving, telling her to stay where she was.

In just a few minutes, the deer was gone, and so was Snape.

* * *

><p>Silver trails on the forest floor, like snail paths, lifted from the surface, hovering in the air. Dark trunks of trees, scratching branches. His footfalls were silent, every twig avoided, every squelching mud puddle bypassed. The doe, too, was silver, silent, waiting, wanting him to follow.<p>

Weeds and ferns, reaching brambles, low tree branches scratching at him, grabbing at his clothes as he passed. He wasn't being quiet anymore. He was frantic. Chasing, paddling through dirt.

Every corner turned, she was there, but only for the shortest of moments, the faintest of glimmers, the flicker of a ghostly silver tail.

He was breathing hard when he emerged into the clearing. He thought once, _Hermione_, but he didn't care. The doe was gone. For a moment, he felt strange, disembodied, like _he_ had been the deer. Light-headed and hunched over as though he'd been walking on all fours.

There - a pool, still and reflective. He crawled to its edge, looked inside, expecting to see a long silvery face, big, milky, unblinking eyes. The glint of something red and silver at the bottom, sparkling like rubies in the dim light.

It was just his own sallow skin, his mouth hanging open. His breathing laboured, his breath a mist in the air.

Human.

He punched the water and his image vanished. A hollered curse sent birds scattering from the trees. Snape collapsed onto a stump and buried his face in his muddy hands.

"Professor?"

He looked up. Hermione.

"What?" he spat.

"You left me," she said, her face impassive, as though he weren't covered in mud. "I found my spot. There's nothing there. Only a clearing."

A pause, a high, grating, "Did you see something? Did something happen?"

"No," Snape lied, staring at her hard.

"Wasted trip," she said, dejected. She reached her bare hand out for his. "Come," she said. "Let's go back." Her hand fell, empty, back to her side. "I won't make you talk about it if you don't want to," she said.

Snape almost liked her for a moment, until she added, that little prying smile emerging, "At least, not until you're ready."


	10. Dark's Hollow

**Chapter Ten**

_**Dark's Hollow**_

They didn't talk. Hermione wasn't sure what part of her expected he _would_ say something—that part was surely foolish. She didn't know Snape well, but from what little she knew of him, she should have realised that he wasn't the sort to gush about his feelings.

Just in case she didn't arrive at that point, he was there to remind her the two times she tried (her, "Do you want to talk about it now?" growing ever quieter) with an increasingly venomous "NO."

It was made worse by the fact that she knew something _had _happened. She'd found him splattered with mud with his head in his hands by a pool in the forest, after he'd started chasing after a deer for no particular reason. She'd even told him that, "You know, they're quite rare, here, deer. They cause damage to the plant life so they try to keep the numbers down. We're very lucky," and yet she hadn't managed to get a rise from him at all, despite the fact that she knew he would bristle at the over-information.

He was even quieter after the after-lunch hike in the other direction (away from the marks on their map—"For control purposes," Hermione had said, though in truth she just wanted to escape from Mrs Jones). By the following morning, he was barely saying anything at all.

They caught the bus after breakfast. Hermione paid for his ticket because he was still only carrying large banknotes, like he didn't know how money worked, and she tried not to become agitated over the fact that he made no promises to pay her back. _Socially inexperienced_, Hermione reminded herself as he plopped down in a seat in the back of the empty bus, then, less kindly, added, _Jerk_.

He sighed as she slid in next to him. She began conversation as though he weren't ignoring her.

"Dark's Hollow,"she said, shaking out the Ordnance Survey map. "If any place is going to be magical, surely with a name like that—"

"I wager five pounds the most interesting thing about it is that the Post Office opens for a half-day on Saturdays."

Hermione looked at him blankly.

"Was that a joke?" she said in disbelief.

"No," he replied, and turned to look out the bus window.

Hermione was feeling nauseous by the time they reached their stop, the undulating roads and pot holes doing all sorts of nasty things to the heavy full English in her stomach. Snape had fallen asleep—she had to knock him in the shoulder and scream at the driver to stop, as though their life depended on it, because he was about to close the doors and drive off again.

"Last bus is at three o'clock," the driver told her, annoyed already as though he'd end up waiting for her, then drove off, the doors still hissing closed, while Snape blinked up at a pristine limestone pub, said, "I'm going to spend the day by myself. See you at two fifty-five," then walked off without her.

* * *

><p>He hadn't slept well last night. It had been difficult to align his brain on the right neurological paths, to coax his breathing into a smooth, regulated pattern. It was made worse by the fact that Hermione seemed to have fallen asleep as soon as her bushy head hit the pillow, so still beneath the covers that every so often, he would hold his breath, listen hard, just to make sure she was still breathing.<p>

He didn't know why he was worried. About death. About her dying, in particular. It had been so long, he supposed, since he'd had a relationship beyond nodding to a hardened neighbour at the shops. She wasn't even his to lose; she was no more than an odd roommate, really, thrown together with him because of a shared disquiet of the mind. Her parents were right to look for her, he thought. If she were his daughter (the idea was laughable, and unsettling), he would have worried about her running off with someone like him, too.

She woke up once, when he was staring at her. She had gasped, frightened, then whispered, "What?"

Large brown eyes in the dark—for a moment, Snape could have sworn they'd flashed green.

"Sorry," Snape said, and turned over in his bed, set on sleeping, only able to do so an hour after her breathing had slowed.

"Are you looking for someone?"

Snape jerked in his seat to find the barmaid leaning toward him, messy, graying hair a curly mass about her head, floating around her shoulders, sticking to the condensation on the taps.

Snape glanced toward the door and took a sip of his drink. He barely even remembered stepping inside this pub. He wondered where Hermione had gone. Probably the library, he thought. While he sat at a bar, on what must have been his third pint, and it wasn't even midday.

His stomach churned.

"No," he said. He rolled his shoulders and pushed his half-empty glass across the bar. There were only three other people in there; career drunks, most likely. All dressed normally. He wasn't sure why he expected otherwise—what did he think they'd be wearing, pointy hats?

He wished he could do this professionally. Straighten his tie and push a business card across the bar, demanding quiet, succinct answers, or he'd take her to the station downtown (Hermione had fallen asleep to his 80s American crime drama the night before). Instead, he called for her—she didn't hear him, and he cleared his throat, said, "Excuse me," again, and waited for her to finish unloading a box of glasses onto a shelf before she came back to him, her expression bored.

"What sort of place is this?" Snape asked, and cringed internally. "Dark's Hollow," he added. "Odd name."

"Oh, it's legendary," she replied, her glum expression brightening, her dark eyes shining with a copper glint. "One of the most haunted places in Britain, actually. _And_ it's legal to shoot a Welshman if he steps foot on our streets after dark."

"That's why I sleep in here!" A Welsh voice slurred from the fireplace, and the drunks laughed.

"Haunted," Snape said, his pulse quickening. "What do you mean?"

Did she just roll her eyes? "Haunted," she said. "Ghosts. Ghouls. Et cetera."

"Ghosts," Snape said. "You believe in that sort of nonsense?"

Her colour heightened, her lips pressing tight together. "You're the one asking questions."

"Where's the tour?" Snape asked.

She had the gall to laugh at him, though she tried to turn it into a cough.

"Leaves from the war memorial at half eleven. You'll probably be the only one on it, today." She looked at her watch, then back up at his drink. "Can I get you another quick one? Something stronger to take the edge off?"

"My edges are sufficiently smooth, thank you," Snape said, and the barmaid rolled her eyes again.

"As you wish," she said. "But you better chug it down. Moira isn't one to wait around for stragglers."

Moira seemed exactly the sort to wait around for stragglers. Snape could only identify her by her badge—she could've been any old woman sitting on the war memorial, reading a tatty romance novel, oblivious to the cold. He was surprised, though, that Hermione wasn't already there—he had more than half-expected to find her alongside Moira, notebook open, shooting off questions like a future star reporter badgering her way to new career heights.

Snape cleared his throat. Moira turned the page and read at least three paragraphs more before she looked up. Snape expected a smile (though he hardly ever welcomed one), but one was not given. Instead, her mouth hanging slightly open, her voice surprisingly high and breathy, Moira said with a Glaswegian lilt, "Are you here for the tour?"

"Yes," Snape replied, thinking he ought to offer some explanation as to why, but could come up with nothing that would make him appear less absurd. "How much is it?" he said instead.

"By donation," Moira said, her face expressionless except for the minute twitch of regret as she packed her book into her handbag. "All goes to the renovation and reopening of the Dark's Hollow Museum."

"Ghost museum?" Snape asked.

She didn't hear the irony in his voice, and replied, "General history." She looked from his face to her watch, then looked up again. "I don't except we'll be having anyone else. Are you ready to begin?"

She took him down the high street, beginning with the butcher's shop (a Victorian meat merchant still haunted it at nights, she told him—sometimes the tenants above could hear the clatter and scrape of hooks dragging across the floor). She said this all before she led him inside, then continued to place her order for a half-pound of beef mince, to be put on her account. "Next," she said, between licking crumbs of sample cheese from her fingers, "we have the corner shop."

Snape was becoming increasingly convinced that the schedule of the tour had been carefully adjusted to fit the timing of Moira's weekly shop. By the time they popped into the bakery, he found himself carrying two plastic bags, and Moira shouldering a mostly empty hessian sack while she waved to the rows above the opposite side of the high street, pointing out the black-beamed flats above a row of antique shops.

"Excuse me," Snape said, growing cold, tired, and exhausted of being talked at. Moira jumped, as though she wasn't used to hearing other people speak. "Could you please tell me," Snape said, trying to keep the snarl out of his voice, "where the name of the village comes from?"

"The name?" said Moira. She blinked at him and pushed her glasses up her nose. "Dark's Hollow."

"Yes," Snape urged her.

She was silent for an agonisingly long time before finally saying, "You see," she said, "it's an old story. Folklore." She frowned at the war memorial, then spotted a bench a few feet behind them. She backed up and lowered herself onto it, dropped her bags onto the ground, and waved her hand. Snape assumed that was her invitation to sit down, though she pressed herself against the opposite arm so that there was a clear few feet between his narrow hips and her ample ones.

"Well, you _must_ know who the Dark is, of course," she said.

Snape said nothing, though the word inexplicably made him shudder.

"Why," Moira said, breathing in sharply, "it's _Death_."

Another beat.

"Dark's Hollow," Snape said, a chill flooding his tongue. "Death's Hollow."

"We've gone through a few name changes," Moira said, "though I can't think of the original for the life of me - not a native, you may have noticed - but for the past several centuries at least, that's the name we've been known by. Well, Death's Hollow, not that long ago, then when they realized it wasn't the most attractive to tourists—"

"Why, though?" Snape said. "Where did the name come from?"

"We were a plague village," Moira said, her blank face finally creasing into something resembling sadness. "As were many villages, in this area. We were quarantined, you see." She pushed her glasses up her nose again and sniffed. "Was a death sentence for near everyone. They didn't know what caused it back then. The story was that it was brought by Death himself, through the forest into our little hollow in the woods, and he knocked from door to door and greeted every inhabitant with a kiss, then found himself an empty house and made himself at home."

She ran the back of her palm across her lower lip.

"Folklore," she said. "Before they knew about blood-borne pathogens."

"Mm," Snape agreed.

"So that's where it came from," she said dismissively. She swept her knees with her hands. Snape wished they had kept standing—he had to readjust her shopping, and the carrier bags were starting to leave deep red grooves in his palms. Moira coughed and tugged her handbag back onto her shoulder. Snape was rather surprised he wasn't carrying that, too.

"Shall we carry on?" Moira asked.

They did. More stories, more shopping, until every supernatural trope in existence had been thrown onto Snape's deadened ears. He rather wished there was at least one other person to weather this with him—preferably Hermione, who would no doubt begin to laugh from the merest exchanged glance.

"Pardon me," Snape said, interrupting their trajectory toward the other side of the village. Moira had been talking so long that he had barely registered where they were—down a residential street from the village square, the war memorial still in full view. She came to a halt and doubled back to him, where he stood at the gate of a slumping black and white cottage, peering down at the plaque on the bars.

"Bagshot House," Snape said. He pointed at the plaque. "Is this on the tour?"

"Never thought I'd have someone more interested in names than ghosts," Moira grumbled.

"It sounds familiar," Snape said.

"There are those _Lord of the Rings_ films—Bag End?"

"No," Snape said, having no idea what she was talking about.

"It's only a house," Moira said, eager to push on, already taking a faltering step backwards.

"Did someone important used to live here?" Snape said.

"No," Moira replied. "And if they did, I would know."

"Has anything unusual ever happened there?" he pressed on.

"Not really." She clawed at the handle of her handbag and pressed a dent in the mud with the the tip of her boot. Despite her assurance that Bagshot House was nothing out of the ordinary, she continued, "It's nothing, really. The landlord always lets it out to idiots. They never last very long."

Snape was silent, waiting for her to continue.

She sighed. "It's the last ones - no, the tenants before, I think - but the imbeciles must've brought it in. Found it running around the attic like it owned the place. Can't imagine how it must've got in if they didn't bring it in themselves, but they swore up and down they had nothing to do with it. Probably terrified of losing the deposit."

Snape blinked at her. "What on earth are you talking about?"

She huffed, a slack-skinned finger pointing to the roof. "In the loft," she said, her hand shaking. "Must've been twenty foot long, at least. A big, gigantic _snake_."

Something cold fell on to the tip of Snape's nose. He panicked, wiped it away, expecting congealed blood. Venom. The flicker of a tongue at his neck.

Water. It had started to rain.

"Are you all right?" Moira asked. She took a step forward as Snape lurched back, the glass jars of passata in the carrier bags clanging back against the gate. "Do you need to sit down?" she said. "It's snakes, isn't it? People can be so frightened of them. But you _did_ ask—"

"I'm fine," Snape said, taking a hold of the gate. He looked up to the house, expecting movement, but the curtains were drawn, the windows dark, nobody home. Breathed deep through his nose. Out through his mouth.

"Perhaps it's time to head back," she said. "Unless you want to continue."

Continuing was the last thing he wanted. They went back to the war memorial; his hands were still shaking as he handed over her shopping, and in exchange, Moira produced a plastic bucket from her handbag. Behind her, Hermione suddenly appeared from around the corner, stopped, smiled, and waved.

"For the museum," Moira said, shaking the bucket in her hand; it jangled with coins.

_Anything? _Hermione mouthed over Moira's shoulder.

Snape shuddered as more drops fell, then slid a twenty pound note into the waiting slot.

* * *

><p>"Something happened again," Hermione said as she urged Snape into a booth by the pub fire, then shuffled in after him, turning to warm her legs by the flames. "You can't pretend nothing did. I rather think I've come to know you better than that. What were you doing, anyway?"<p>

Snape had another hot chocolate, was taking it down in gulps. It wasn't helping.

He shuddered and her back pressed up against his side. He wondered if it was deliberate, or if she couldn't feel him there through the fabric of her coat. Finally, she turned so they were side-to-side, their close proximity undeniable, though she seemed inexplicably unconcerned by it.

"Where were you," Snape grunted. Not really a question, didn't really care.

"At the library," Hermione answered, of course. She kicked her heavy rucksack further beneath the table. "Found twelve books, altogether. Might need your help, if we want to find anything in time."

Snape wondered for a moment what she was counting down to, then realised she had most likely been running through the past days on an internal clock, the minutes ticking away until she'd have to go home to her parents, until she'd have to leave him to his own pitiful devices. She had unsettled him so greatly, thrown a spanner into the workings of his mind. He felt so babyish around her, so wholly impractical, that he didn't know how he'd be able to function when she stepped back on the train to London. It was stupid how little he wanted to think about it.

He didn't even _like _her.

"You _did_ see something," Hermione said, instantly proving his point. "Or at least feel it."

"You don't have a library card," Snape replied, deflecting her accusation.

She blushed brilliantly and whispered, "I'll post them back when I'm done with them. They hadn't been checked out in years, anyway." She brushed his change of subject aside. "We're here to help each other," she said. "I've been honest with you. You need to be honest with me."

Snape took another sip of chocolate. It pooled across his burnt tongue.

"What happened?" she said. "When I found you, it looked as though you'd seen a ghost."

Snape brought his hand to his neck and rubbed. It was aching terribly, a strange, burning patch of skin spreading from his shoulder across his throat to the underside of his chin.

"It was a ghost tour," he said.

"I noticed," she said. "The librarian kept blabbing on about the hauntings. What, did she say something?"

"Not about ghosts," Snape admitted, pressing harder, the cold skin of his hand numbing the pain in his neck. "I'm…" he began. "…I have a phobia." His voice dropped. "Of snakes."

"Okay," Hermione said (thankfully not laughing).

"It was something she said," Snape continued, "that a few years ago, they found a huge snake in the attic of one of the houses here."

"Just found it?" Hermione said, plainly incredulous. "It must've been someone's pet."

"Undoubtedly," Snape said. "And then the deer yesterday. It felt like…I knew it would be there. Like it had something to do with me."

He looked up at Hermione, and he was thankful to see her expression wasn't humouring. Instead, her head was cocked to the side, her brows furrowed.

"Was the house down Church Lane?" she asked.

Snape shrugged.

"It's just that…it sounds familiar. Only, I don't think I marked it on the map."

"Coincidences," Snape said and grabbed hard onto the handle of his mug.

"I'm starting to think about that," Hermione said. "I've been convinced for the longest time that there are things I've forgotten. Well, I _know_ there are things I've forgotten. But I don't think that's it, not wholly."

"I'm starting to think it's not us," Snape replied, knowing exactly what she meant. "It's everyone else."

"And that these coincidences," Hermione agreed, "are perhaps, theoretically, symptomatic of a wrong world trying to right itself. I know it sounds mad, but—"

"But _is_ this the wrong world?" Snape asked. He looked up at their surroundings, at the empty pub and the empty bar, relishing the fact that they were alone.

"Doesn't it feel wrong to you?" Hermione asked. "We think there should be things there aren't, a freak snake shows up in someone's attic—" She shuddered. "—and that somehow seems like something we expect to happen—"

"Coincidences," Snape said with a sneer. "The spots on the map, the rare deer we just happened to spot in the forest…"

Hermione nodded, and began to dig through her bag before extracting her diary from beneath the library books. "So the snake means something," she replied. She licked her thumb and flipped open to a free page. "As does the deer."

She fixed him with her wide-eyed stare, her brown eyes watery, sympathetic, as if she was trying to goad him into starting to cry.

"Tell me, Severus," she said, in her best therapist imitation, "how does this make you feel?"

He squirmed. His trousers made rude noises against the vinyl of the booth. Her knee knocked into his thigh.

His neck throbbed. _Afraid_.

He met her gaze and set his jaw.

"Empty," he said, his voice hard. "Like I'm missing something."

She sucked at her top lip and scribbled something down without looking at the page.

"Magic," she offered.

"Someone," he muttered.

Hermione flinched and whispered, "Whom?"

"I don't know," Snape said. "Who is Ron?"

She was going to start crying again. He tried not to feel too pleased that that comment shut her up, but couldn't help it.

He glanced at his watch. "Time to go," he said, gesturing toward the door. She wasn't looking at him, busying herself by re-packing her things into her bag. Snape slid out of the booth, refusing to help her, wondering why he suddenly felt angry with her. Again. "Bus will be here in five minutes," he said.

He'd lost his return ticket; Hermione had to buy him a new one. Still, she didn't say another word as he slid into the seat and she sat beside him, only allowed him to press his forehead to the bus window and watch the streets of Dark's Hollow retreat, the shops shuddering out of view as they turned off the high street, past the last few cottages on the outskirts of town.

One last cottage appeared: a stone ruin that appeared to smoke in the cold. Snape knocked his forehead into the window, leaving a mark, like he could slide through the glass and into the lawn. His pulse quickened, his throat tight with panic. He almost said something, almost pointed it out to Hermione, almost shouted to stop the bus so he could go: go see, go witness, go undo everything.

But a second later it had disappeared. One last rush of light from a pair of headlights and the ruin diminished into the deepening twilight, where it was only a house, windows glowing warm yellow, guttering twinkling with lights for Christmas, completely and spectacularly whole.


End file.
